Last spring
, in preparation for a conference I was co-directing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I gave a lot of thought to identifying what I perceived to be the barriers to peace in the Middle East.
HERE'S ONE VIEW
of our common future: acute environmental destruction; islands of wealth amid oceans of poverty; overlapping epidemics; conflict over diminishing natural resources; anarchy.
"YOU MAY FIND
some of the pictures in this report upsetting," advised the BBC News announcer politely, introducing an update on Liberia as the first peacekeepers arrive in Monrovia.